


He Sees (What Could Have Been)

by BilingualBird



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe-Everybody Dies Except Bodhi, Fix-It of Sorts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-21
Updated: 2016-12-21
Packaged: 2018-09-10 19:52:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,327
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8936350
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BilingualBird/pseuds/BilingualBird
Summary: When Scarif is destroyed, when Cassian and Jyn die in each other's arms, when the bodies of Chirrut and Baze are obliterated, Bodhi Rook is not present in the destruction. He is bleeding to death above the planet's surface in a stolen cargo ship piloted by two Rebel officers who are very determined to live.(In which Bodhi Rook tastes life outside the Empire, deals with grief, but just barely, and lives to see the next generation of the Rebellion)





	

Bodhi Rook survived the explosion that blew up the cargo ship he had been hiding on. He wouldn’t, or couldn’t more likely, tell a single soul how; but the two surviving members of the original ground crew, Kardan Lee and Sankai Koola, had somehow found him, half-buried in the rubble, and dragged him with them onto another abandoned ship and to safety far above the planet.

He was unconscious the whole time, the force of the explosion had quite literally blasted his legs off, and even if he had managed to overcome the blood loss and severe pain to wakefulness, someone would have knocked him out again anyway.

He had absolutely no idea how he had gotten off Scarif, just like he had no idea about the deaths of Jyn, Cassian, Chirrut and Baze until Kardan and Sankai had told him during one of their short, rather awkward visits. He was on so many drugs at that point that the only thing coming out of his mouth had been drool, and that doesn’t exactly make for a lively conversation.

So he sits there, slowly regaining his speech and fine motor movememnts, even if his hands tremble and shake half the time, even if his legs are gone from the knee down and all that’s left are bloody, raw stumps that hurt so badly he can barely think straight.

So he sits there and tries desperately to put sentences and thoughts together in his own head. He tries desperately not to lose it.

And at this point it’s hard not to, confined to a bed in a base that was bustling with movement as it tore itself apart in preparation for a move to Hoth. No legs to speak of, no friends except for the two soldiers he’d returned to the base with, and absolutely no hope. Because he’d heard the whispers of Princess Leia’s capture, he knew what Vader was capable of and more likely than not their sacrifice, Jyn and Cassian and Chirrut and Baze all dead, had been for nothing.

And he thinks these thoughts day in and day out, in sleep and in wakefulness, haunted by despair and pain and grief for people—friends— that he’d hardly known.

On the day that the official move to Hoth began, Katarn and Sankai troop into his room with an old-fashioned wheelchair, somber but determined to talk with him for reasons he couldn’t understand. 

He struggles into a more upright position on his bed.  
They stare at each other for more than a few moments. A pale, exhausted cripple wrapped in blankets staring down two well-armed and dangerous men. Bodhi would chuckle, but he is terrified that it would turn into a giggle and then roll right into the territory of hysterical laughter and sobbing.

“Have you decided yet?”

Bodhi blinks. Decided? Decided wha—oh. He had been offered a job with the Rebel Alliance earlier in the week. A younger officer had extended the invitation wearing an expression of nothing less than displeasure and voice with a tone that bordered on disgust. He had seen the look on the officer’s face again and again from the nurses and the humanoid that delivered his food. 

“I—would I be welcomed?” Maybe it was childish, maybe it was the drugs being pumped into his system, but Bodhi couldn’t care more about anything in the world than that moment before they’d landed on Scarif, when everyone on the cargo ship had been overcome by purpose and determination and hope and he wanted that he needed it—

“Would we have dragged you from the rubble if you were not?” Katarn said and Sankai nodded from beside his friend.

“I’ll be of no use, I can’t pilot right now, and I’ve got no le—” _legs_ Bodhi had no legs, he couldn’t walk, he can't pilot with the shaking fits he’d been having recently, and his knowledge of enemy cargo routes and protocols will quickly become outdated.

“This is the Rebellion, and usefulness is not determined by your ability to fly things or move around, anyways,” Katarn smirks and Sankai jiggles the arm of the wheelchair with a proud look on his face. “That’s why we brought this.”

And before Bodhi could argue that ‘no they were wrong, usefulness is exactly determined by one’s ability to fly or walk or shoot or anything of the like’ the first part of their statement hits him. This is the Rebellion, not the Empire. He’s not on the run, he’s not kneeling before Saw Gerrera or Vader, not that he would ever again do any kneeling, but he’s free.

He feels like he can breathe for the first time in years, and he’s so caught up in it all that he doesn’t complain when Katarn and Sankai bundle him into the wheelchair and push him through the hallways into a hangar and onto a slightly crowded transport ship.

He comes back to his senses when they secure his chair into a corner with a quiet clink. 

Everyone in the ship is staring them, or rather him, down and Bodhi almost wishes the explosion on Scarif had ripped off his head as well as his legs.

But Katarn sits down heavily next to him, just a little too close with his arms hanging over Bodhi’s and his legs invading the space Bodhi's once would have taken; and Sankai gives the assembled crowd an absolutely furious look that has them minding their own business again within seconds.

“Why are you doing this?” Bodhi asks quietly. “I’m just a defector.”

“You’re more than just a defector,” Katarn gives him a hard stare. "You are a man who risked everything to get a message to the Resistance, you've saved billions of lives, and though you do not seem to think so, you are a hero."p>

“Exactly,” Sankai agrees, “and you’re Rogue One, just like we are, and we’ve got to stick together. Us who got off Scarif, we make sure no one forgets.”

Bodhi accepts this silently. Because Cassian and Jyn and Chirrut and Baze and the men who had died broken and burned and battered on Scarif deserved to be remembered as heroes. That was the only thing the living could give them now, other than the success of the plan their mission had started. 

“What will we do?” Bodhi asked, “What would you have me do?”

 

 

Years later when FN-2187 defects, when he is given the name Finn and gains two new friends through a fight that didn’t have to be his but is anyway, Poe Dameron will take him and Rey to a room on a busy hallway near the hangar in the Rebellion base.

An old, wheelchair bound man will invite them in and smile fondly as Poe made introductions. He will make them tea and clear papers from the table in the kitchen so they can sit and chat. He will put a reassuring hand on Poe’s shoulder when he hears of his interrogation by Kylo Ren, he will listen quietly to Finn’s doubts and fears about his defection, and he will meet Rey’s stare as she describes what she had to do to survive on Jakku and he will not turn them away, but instead tell them of his own story, of Cassian’s story, of Jyn’s story, of Chirrut and Baze’s story.

He will tell them of Rogue One’s successful mission, and how to the survivors it sometimes didn't feel like a success, and he will not be ashamed of the wetness in his eyes. They will not be ashamed of the tears in theirs, and when they leave they will promise to visit again soon.

And when they leave he will finally let his tears fall freely and he will sob because he sees Jyn in Rey, he sees Cassian in Poe, and he sees a phantom of what he might have become in Finn and he cannot be more proud.

**Author's Note:**

> Please leave some constructive criticism in the comments, it would be greatly appreciated. Thank your for reading!


End file.
